And OH He was. Little did I know when I wrote that post, that just a few short weeks later, He would affirm His leading for me to go back to MC, through a series of events that takes several cups of coffee to get through telling the story.
And today, two years later, I find myself rallying around those same truths. I–and many friends around me–find myself echoing those “I don’t know…” sentences.
I don’t know what all the semester holds. I don’t know what I should be involved in. I don’t know what life after graduation will look like. I don’t know how I will begin to pay off my student loans. I don’t know how I will continue walking this path of obedience toward journeyman. So many unknowns surround this season, this closing of an old (old) season–I’ve been here at MC for a long time–and the soon-to-be unfolding completely new season, which I am simultaneously welcoming and dreading at the same time.
And yet, as also alluded to in that old post, there is so much peace. My heart is quiet. My schedule is full of people. I am constantly going through this process of being poured into and pouring out. Which is exactly where I want to be right now. And which is exactly what I do know about this journey right now. And, it turns out, it’s all I need to know: that I am somehow, by the grace of God, walking into the midst of small steps of obedience.
Because, really, it’s in these smallest of steps that we find Him.
Just look at Jesus: I read recently that Jesus’ journey on this earth looked like a failing presidential candidate, who was always getting sidetracked: by this one person sitting in a tree, by the woman who could only approach Him long enough to touch the hem of his robe, by the man who barely had enough faith to speak to Jesus about his son.
And yet, for each of these, Jesus stops in his tracks, reaches out to them, and does a marvelous thing. These smallest of gospel stories are what keep me going forward in the small steps of faith I’m called to each day. That, really, we’re all called to.
In Ephesians 1, Paul prayed for the church to know some things too. Not what “the plan” was or how it was all going to unfold or what they needed to do right then and there. But for the eyes of their hearts to be enlightened by the Spirit of wisdom and revelation,
“So that you might know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance for the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power, purposed for us who have believed and put our faith in Him, according to the working of the might of His strength (not our own).”
We need to know the hope of His calling–that He has called us into something greater than ourselves; that we didn’t invite ourselves or earn our way into His calling. We need this hope to endure even when we do not know what lies ahead; hope to take one day, one moment, one step at a time.
We need to know where our truth wealth and abundance lies. Not here and now in what we can hear, but reserved for us in ways we can never imagine. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard what God has prepared for those who love Him.” Through this, we learn to look to Him for all the provision we may need. And even in that provision that we see now? It’s only the fringes of the inheritance we are promised.
Finally, we need to know just how great His power is and how it is purposed for us. That phrase is so beautiful to me. His power is set aside for us, because these small (or big) steps we are called to each day are not up to us to accomplish. He alone has the power to do what He alone has determined for us! My prayer is that we would kneel in our weakness, seek to abide in Him, and watch His strength and power arise to make us fruitful, even beyond our current small steps and simple knowledge.
